Transferring low tech manufacturing jobs to cheap labour countries is often seen by part of the general public and policy makers as a step into the de-industrialisation of the European economies. However, several recent contributions have shown that the effects on home economies are rarely...

This paper uses micro data from the Indonesian Census of Manufacturing to analyze the causal relationship between foreign ownership and plant productivity. To control for the possible endogeneity of the FDI decision, a difference-in-differences approach is combined with propensity score...

During the nineties, Europe became a major recipient of FDIs but Italian regions have been largely excluded from this process. Was it due to their characteristics, or were Italian regions ‘doomed’ by a negative country effect? In this paper we address this issue by estimating the...

We examine the determinants of multinational firms’ location choices in Europe by estimating a nested logit model on a data-set of 5,761 foreign subsidiaries established in 55 regions in 8 EU countries over the period 1991-1999. We find that firms perceive regions across different countries as...

The presence of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) can benefit local economies. In particular, if MNEs are very productive compared to domestic firms, they may promote learning and catch-up of local firms. Such a channel of spillovers from MNEs to local firms is known as the Veblen-...

This study explores how relative skilled-wage premia affect FDI. Contrary to previous studies based on factor endowment differences, we find strong support for vertical FDI, in the sense that more FDI is conducted in countries where unskilled labor is relatively cheap. In addition, we find that...

We introduce incomplete outsourcing contracts in an otherwise standard model of MNEs based on the trade-off between proximity and concentration. This has both positive and normative implications. As to the former, incomplete outsourcing contracts can account for the observed emergence of FDIs in...

We use firm-level data on Swedish multinationals to analyze how the recent expansion of affiliate employment in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has affected affiliate employment elsewhere. According to our results, employment in affiliates located in other low-wage countries in Europe decreased...